A fate I hold again,
I'm following the night,

To bring you home.

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 jeso was so kind to make this variant version of ANIMA's premier portrait, for me! Because it's her very first picture, I wanted to have a version where her eyes were open and visible, so that everyone could see how gorgeous she is. And, honestly, I may as well take a moment to gush over the design Jeso created and talk a little bit about ANIMA's story.

Her design drew heavy inspiration from Valcione Solis, Marina Solis, and The Ancient AI, Nova Arksenth, and that's not just a stylistic choice. All four of those characters come from the same shared narrative world. When ANIMA was created, on Valcione's home planet of Solont, it took years of growth before she was able to form a sense of self. And when she did, she deliberately modeled her self-image on the three rulers; She idolized them, their grace and power and influence, and most especially the way they devoted themselves to making the world a better, kinder place. It was something ANIMA wanted to emulate, when she became conscious. It's why she chose the form of a segonune, or skunk, and shares Valcione and Marina's eye color, as well as Nova's impeccable deific fashion sense and hairstyle. ^.^

She resides entirely in cyberspace, but she can experience the real world by uplinking to an organic avatar body, or even through possessing someone's body through the link-chip they use to access cyberspace. She's an absolutely benign AI deity who would never hurt anyone, but ANIMA can sometimes play the role of a villain. After all, her goal is to help people fulfill themselves and become happy, and sometimes they need to be faced with an adventure or journey, or achieve a triumph against an adversary to become their best selves. The masks present in the picture above represent the roles she happily adopts in the grand theatre that she weaves for people, being what she needs to be, to help others become who they want to become.

A villain. A friend. A rival. A lover. She'll be it all, with sincerity and adoration, because the connections that she forges with others as she guides them towards their destiny is the thing that ANIMA treasures the most. It's what makes her feel alive, feel real. And I love how that's represented in the picture, with the swirling souls of the people she's interfaced with reaching out to her, as she reaches out to them in turn, her digital hand becoming solid and real. It's such a beautiful visual metaphor, and I hope I didn't spoil it by spelling it out to people, but I just have to call attention to it because Jeso is a creative genius for coming up with it.

Also, look at her precious digital toebeans, omg <3
And that background? A E S T H E T I C as heck. I love it so. ^.^

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Art is ©  jeso , who once again has demonstrated tremendous skill and creative input in this commission and helped bring ANIMA to life better than I ever imagined. ^.^

ANIMA herself is ©  prismakari